


Edelweiss

by sombreset



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Atem loves him dearly, If anyone cares this is Atem and Seto from my story Fantasy, M/M, Merry Christmas Selena ily, Minor Swearing, One-Shot, Prideshipping, Seto is a dork but he's trying his best, christmas 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:01:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21959287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sombreset/pseuds/sombreset
Summary: "You’re a brave pioneer. But I want to be with you when you’re discovering it all. If you would’ve just told me you wanted to try to do a Christmas thing, I’d have helped you set up everything and saved you from a cookie catastrophe.”Seto shrugged but Atem saw a small smile, and felt comfort when Seto’s hand squeezed his.“You have enough to stress about,” Atem continued. “You don’t have to get this perfect. This… idea of family, and dating… we both are unpracticed. Don’t take the burden all on your own. We’re a team, Seto. Let me dance and slip up with you. Alright?”Tiny Christmas gift one-shot for Selena <3
Relationships: Atem/Kaiba Seto
Comments: 4
Kudos: 16





	Edelweiss

Falling into wake that day felt softer than it usually did. It wasn’t sudden, and his bones weren’t broken. Nor did he climb into the world of the living, crawling through tar and sludge to take his place behind tired eyes. It was something gentle; a drift that seemed to blur together with the vision of snow outside.

Atem looked out beyond the balcony window, eyes barely open because the world was so bright. 

Little puffs of white drifting through the air. Unusual, unfamiliar. 

Eyes barely open; 

_It was snowing._

The first thing he wanted to do was tell Seto, but the man was surely hundreds of emails deep into work. Where Atem slept for hours and couldn’t help it, Seto was the opposite. Restless after only a few. Waking up with the sun, but never finding time to rest until hours after it had set. Atem didn’t need to turn and look at his lover’s side of the bed to know he was absent-- on the rare occasions where Seto _did_ stay with him until he woke, Atem would always feel warmth nearby or legs pressed sleepily against his. 

After a lot of effort and a slow stretch, Atem slid out of bed and searched the floor for his pajama bottoms he’d surely kicked off some time in the night prior. The game plan for the morning was to find Seto wherever he had set up his intensive “holiday office camp.” Sometimes it was the office (as it should be), sometimes it was the dinner table. Sometimes it was his lab outside. One time Atem found him cooped up in a guest room with blankets piled over him when the heater wasn’t working right. 

Atem asked why he didn’t just bring all his work stuff up to their bedroom where it was warmer, Seto replied saying he didn’t want to disrupt his sleep. 

Atem shook his head and kissed him on the cheek. 

Something was different this time. Rather than the usual quiet, Atem heard mechanical noises that sounded an awful lot like the whirr of a mixer and he smelled something delicious. Pastries, or maybe bread. Beyond all that, he also heard the quiet sound of classical music. 

“What in the world are you doing?” Atem murmured to himself, dressing enough with a loose T-shirt, sweats, and a mismatched pair of socks, before scooting his way towards the staircase. 

Seto was rarely spontaneous. No, he was a man of habit and precision. 

And the last thing Atem ever expected from Seto was _cookies_ before they even had a chance to say good morning _._

The _other_ last thing Atem expected coming downstairs was garlands wound around the banisters with big red bows securing them. He swore on everything he knew that those were _not_ there when he went to bed last night. Cautiously, he continued. Brow furrowed when he saw festive little decorations all over, and--

Good Gods there was a tree in the living room. All lit up and wrapped with ribbon and beads, colorful ornaments adorning every space, a pretty gold star on top. 

_...Christmas? Since when did…_

Atem found his way to the kitchen, through the slightly disorienting makeover the house had on display. He could hear little mumblings that became more and more clear as he got closer to his targeted person: his disheveled, red-faced, and possibly manic boyfriend that was hand mixing something in a metal bowl at a damn impressive speed. 

“Gotta keep in mind, the timer…” Seto’s voice trailed off, and he apparently still hadn’t noticed that Atem was watching him from a few feet away in absolute amazement. “Then, the dinner things should be ready at 2, I should leave in 30, but I have to turn off the oven and thaw the--” 

“Seto?” 

A little yelp and the mixing bowl _should’ve_ flown from Seto’s hands onto the floor but they were lucky. It just landed on the counter with a sharp thud. 

“You,” Seto breathed and then laughed. The moment was quick though, he picked the bowl back up and started mixing it again. “You scared the shit out of me. I figured you wouldn’t be up for at _least_ another two hours.” 

“Well, here I am.” Atem looked around, a baffled sort of humor in his voice. “What is going on? Did Santa hold you at gunpoint and force you to participate in the whole Christmas thing?” 

Suddenly Seto stopped mixing the dough that certainly had enough anyway. Eyes wide and exhausted. 

That kind of look that concerned Atem the most. He could tell-- Seto must’ve not slept at all. 

“Is it bad? Did you not… was this a bad idea?” Seto was suddenly frantic, fingers snaking into his hair and and pressing his palms into his eye sockets-- only to pull back immediately and curse because the poor man must've forgot there was cookie dough and flour _all_ over his hands and now it was in his hair too. 

“Great,” Seto groaned, eyes squeezed shut in frustration. “Sorry. Sorry, this was just… an idea. A stupid idea, and I just thought maybe… No. This was-- sorry, I can take everything down.” 

_“Hey.”_ Atem reached out and took a doughy hand into his own, and guided them over to the kitchen table. Sat Seto down, and then himself. “Listen to me for a second, okay? I haven’t said _anything_ about _any_ of this being bad. I’m just… surprised. I don’t know the first thing about Christmas, other than… I don’t know, Santa. And presents, something about Jesus and Christianity, decorated trees, and… that’s about it, really. And you, you haven’t celebrated Christmas since you were little, right?”

Seto’s eyes were still shut and he nodded his head. 

Atem took a hand into his own, kissed the top of it. _Sweet. Something sugary._ “...Seto, why did you do all this? I hope you know I don’t expect all this stuff.” 

“I just figured…” Something quiet and shaky, Seto swallowed down his insecurities and tried again. “I just figured that you’d want… something-- somebody _normal._ And all this, this is normal. Families, they all do this stuff. I did. With… my legitimate father. I want to feel like I can _provide_ something normal for you. But, I…” 

Atem chuckled, his other hand reaching to stroke Seto’s cheek lightly with his thumb. “First of all, not _everyone_ in the world celebrates Christmas. In fact, I think Christmas craze is a little bit _ab_ normal. And a little dangerous to go shopping during.” 

“I know, but--”

 _“Second,_ I… know you’re trying. I see it every day, how hard you’re trying to recover and find some sort of normalcy. But… _both_ of us, both of us don’t really know what normal means. We’re figuring it out, but that’s the thing: _we_ are figuring it out. 

You’re a brave pioneer. But I want to be _with_ you when you’re discovering it all. If you would’ve just _told_ me you wanted to try to do a Christmas thing, I’d have helped you set up everything and saved you from a cookie catastrophe.”

Seto shrugged but Atem saw a small smile, and felt comfort when Seto’s hand squeezed his. 

“You have enough to stress about,” Atem continued. “You don’t have to get this perfect. This… idea of family, and dating… we both are unpracticed. Don’t take the burden all on your own. _We’re a team, Seto._ Let me dance and slip up with you. Alright?”

“...Alright,” Seto whispered in contented defeat. 

Hands held, and they moved across the day with their two left feet. The cookies were a bit tough, and when they danced in the evening Seto accidentally bumped into the coffee table and knocked over the festive flower piece that Atem didn’t notice until after the tiny disaster. No glass broke, but the floor was a floral mess. 

So when Seto frantically set down his Moscow mule and scrambled to pick up the pieces, Atem knelt down and took a lone white hellebore flower. Gently tucked it behind Seto’s ear and it stopped his scrambling. 

Seto looked up, expression in a way that Atem knew as the “I’m trying my hardest not to smile right now and it’s not working” face. 

“Pretty,” Atem said.

“Just like you,” Seto murmured quietly at the carpet, a little bit of red to his cheeks. The last of the flowers were gathered up and put back in the vase. The floor was still wet, but it could wait. 

They found the moment better, quiet pulling into the tiny space between them; and everything felt orange as they kissed, there, in a home kept for two. 

Atem spoke against Seto’s lips. Hush, little touches against Seto’s sweater. “Let’s plan this better next year. Or, better yet-- let _me._ I’ll make sure you get a whole month off of work. We can use December as an excuse to leave everything but us behind.” 

Seto chuckled, “Oh, I don’t know about a whole _month._ But I could swing a week. Two, even. How does that sound?” 

“Lovely. Now, however, let’s celebrate how good we’ve done this year. Okay?” 

Little smiles. The house warmed to a comfortable red. 

“Okay.”


End file.
